For Immediate Release: Aug. 7, 2009

Contact: Dawn Robbins, dawn@dawnrobbins.com or by calling 503-474-4146.

While virtually all of the nation’s hospitals are smoke free, today’s hospital is almost always part of a larger campus encompassing additional outpatient care facilities, offices, educational centers, clinics and more. Eliminating tobacco use from a multi-acre complex that is in use by hundreds and even thousands of people 24 hours a day is a complex undertaking, affecting employees, patients, families, visitors, nearby businesses and the community at large.

Now a new tool is available to help hospital executives and other leaders achieve a smoke free hospital community by using field-tested best practices, policies and protocols. Destination Tobacco-Free: A Practical Tool for Hospitals & Health Systems was developed by the Washington Health Foundation’s Healthiest State in the Nation Campaign with funding from the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center, a national program office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It is available to all of America’s 5000 hospitals free of charge and is being promoted through the American Hospital Association’s Community Connections initiative and its affiliate, the Association for Community Health Improvement.

The 32-page guide was vetted by hospital administrators and clinicians from across the United States and contains step-by-step directions, examples, and tools that can help hospitals not only eliminate tobacco use, but also improve patient care, bolster employee and community health and save money.

Raymond Grady, a member of the AHA’s Board of Trustees and the former president of Evanston Hospital in Illinois, co-chaired the Destination Tobacco-Free Advisory Committee, Grady said the group met its mark with a “concise, comprehensive, and easy-to-use tool. I wish we had a resource like this when we launched our policy. It provides answers to many of the tough questions.” Grady also noted that many hospitals use their campaigns to eliminate tobacco from their facilities as a launching pad for a community-wide tobacco-free movement. “Hospitals can and should be a role model for other organizations and the community at large.”

The tool is divided into five chapters:

1. Becoming and Remaining Tobacco-Free focuses on creating a tobacco-free campus
2. Working with Employees suggests ways to advance tobacco-free policies, through communications, training and health benefits
3. Working with Patients looks at systems, protocols and trainings for addressing tobacco use
4. Working with Visitors suggests ways to respectfully enforce your tobacco-free policy
5. Working in the Community shows how to partner with neighbors, physicians, tobacco quit lines and others on this important health initiative

Examples and templates, found in Destination Tobacco-Free’s 22 appendices, are designed to ease planning, policy development, employee communications, patient records, formulary development, media relations, and other activities.

Destination Tobacco-Free can be viewed or downloaded free of charge from http://www.whf.org/DestinationTobaccoFree. The Smoking Cessation Leadership Center is offering a free webinar overview of Destination Tobacco-Free at 2 p.m. Eastern Time on September 10, 2009. The webinar will include tips for using the tool, examples from the field, and opportunities for creating a Destination Tobacco-Free initiative in your health system, community or state. To register for the webinar, click on http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229DHHNHRR5. To explore opportunities for a Destination Tobacco-Free initiative or inquire about future webinars, contact dawn@dawnrobbins.com or (503)774-4146.